To Your Grave I Spoke
by Anesther
Summary: The world forgets how to spin when the living talk to the dead. Drabbles and short stories. Set before, during, and some after The Caged Bird Sings.


**AN: I'M BACK YES I AM DONE WITH COLLEGE. **

**FOR NOW.**

**Ugh! I wanna go back and write! Yay! Cato will finally get things going! My poor baby boy has been feeling neglected, as well as all of you and I'm so, so, so sorry!  
I'm pretty sure I can start doing more drabbles for Pebbles too and I'm also starting this. (Hopefully, too, I can work on the other Catoniss fics I've been wanting to do.) While I was studying and killing myself in my nightmares, I suddenly was struck by Prim, who is feeling pretty anxious. This place will be for her but also for other characters that want a say in this whole ordeal of Katniss'.  
I know, I know—will I EVER finish anything. I will, at least get TSCO closer to completion, now that I have **_**some**_** time off. I'm sorry (okay no it's Prim) but she needs this.**

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_To Your Grave I Spoke_

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Barren

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My mother is sitting before a barely flickering fire. We had just turned off the ruddy television and she seems to be staring off into space. My heart jumps a little at the blank look on her face—I don't want her to leave. Katniss made her promise that she couldn't abandon me. I know that she won't, because Katniss made her swear not to, and my mother is not a cruel person; she won't leave.

But I still worry for her.

Buttercup sits curled in my lap, and the patches of fur he has are soft beneath my cold fingers. He purrs, vibrating softly into the folds of my clothes. I rise to my feet, holding Buttercup to my chest. The sun outside is blistering, the sunlight burning my skin. I let Buttercup loose to do what he wants, watching him as he begins to stalk something. I turn away. I know that's what cats do but I still don't like to watch.

When we were younger and Katniss was teaching me how to skin a rabbit, I began to cry uncontrollably. Afterward, when she finished making stew, she ruffled my hair and joked that, if I had a choice, I probably would never eat a living thing. And she's right, still is. It unsettles me a little whenever I eat the meat of an animal but it's not as though I have the ability to make that kind of decision. I'm not ungrateful for what she does—she just knows that I'm more empathetic than most people; or, at least, wants to treat everyone kindly.

Katniss hides a lot of things from me, to protect me, but it's not complicated to figure out a couple things: not everyone is trustworthy, we all have to do things that, sometimes, we don't like in order to live, and I'm not always nice.

The last one has been growing more so throughout the long, dreary days.

I wake up in the middle of the night, Buttercup faintly glowing from moonlight, a scream in my throat tearing its way out into the world because, in my dreams, it's the only place where Katniss can hear me warn her.

I'm always too late though.

The rustling of leaves bring me out of my thoughts. I'm walking needlessly around and I don't notice until now that I'm at the top of where the raw sewage spills into the bank deposit for garbage. The stink is sharp and the slope more so. Katniss always tells me to be careful here—it's not hard or unheard of for people to slip. I turn around and walk into the town. Everything is always dull and dark but I kind of like the simplicity of it. I used to, anyway. Ever since my sister had been taken from me—losing a part of me in the process—I have avoided social interaction, despite liking people.

The majority of the time…

I think of our District's mentor, Haymitch Abernathy. He's never bothered but I've never really been around him either. He's surly, and a drunk, as most people refer to him as. But he had been through the Games before and no one comes out the same as they went in. He changed a lot, from what some folks can remember, and even those facts might be a little skewed.

And then I wonder if my sister will come out the same.

I hope she does.


End file.
